


Verses Like Yours and Mine

by rivers_bend



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Normal High School, M/M, Mary Winchester Lives, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 10:39:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11311674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivers_bend/pseuds/rivers_bend
Summary: Sam and Dean are regular brothers--no hunting, no demons--who fall in love anyway.





	Verses Like Yours and Mine

**Author's Note:**

> this work was originally posted on LJ in January 2008, and got lost when journals got deleted

Mary Winchester gets home first, before any of her boys, because that's how she promised herself it was going to be. John is never going to wonder where his wife is—if she's hurt, or bleeding, or dead—and her sons are never going to have to worry about their parents. Her life isn't totally risk-free; there are the occasional cat scratches and that one time she needed stitches when a parrot bit her arm. One of the other vet techs took care of it, though, and she didn't even need to go to the hospital. 

She works from nine until two, five days a week, with health, dental, and two weeks of holiday a year. There's time to do the grocery shopping or a load of laundry or to read a few chapters of a novel before Dean and Sam get home from school, and when John gets home, the four of them sit down to dinner. She's been teaching a women's self-defense class at the Y on Saturdays ever since John got his own shop and could set his hours. She and Louise and Joanne from her book group go running before work three mornings a week now that their kids are in high school and would rather not have a parent around in the mornings to check their homework and pack their lunches. 

It's not exactly how she thought it would be. There are things she never thought she'd miss that get her up in the middle of the night sometimes, sharpening the kitchen knives just to hear the scrape of the stone, or send her sneaking off to the firing range, renting a gun from Gerald behind the desk. She signs her name as Deana Campbell, using the drivers license John doesn't know she has. It's not everything, but she's happy, and she wouldn't trade it.

Because she's home first, Mary gets the mail. When there are three fat envelopes addressed to Dean, she wishes it were a day she'd gone shopping so she didn't have to wait so long for him to get home. His coach said Dean was bound to get a baseball scholarship, and it's torture to have to wait and see if one of the envelopes proves him right. 

Both her boys are good kids, and Mary's proud of them. Smart, fast, strong, and despite the four years between them, they've always taken care of each other. Louise is forever complaining that her sons can't agree on anything and spend most of their time fighting or not speaking at all. Jonah won't even drive Carl to school, making him take the bus even though it means Carl has to leave half an hour earlier. In John's old Chevy that Dean rebuilt from the ground up, Dean drives Sam anywhere he wants to go. Which is, more often than not, wherever Dean is going to be.

Sam's been chasing after Dean since he could walk. By four years old, he could read and would make his best approximation of Dean's math and spelling worksheets with his crayons. Even so, the school wouldn't let him into kindergarten early, so they all had to endure Sam's sobs when Mary and Dean left him at nursery school and went off to elementary school without him. 

The next year, when Sam had only been two weeks in kindergarten and the school wanted to bump him up to first grade, Mary had some choice words for the principal. She and John discussed it, and moved him up, but she still thinks he would have done better skipping that last year of nursery school.

The envelopes she set aside on the kitchen counter catch Mary's eye again. She recognizes the logos from the days they spent deciding where Dean would apply: Texas Tech, Cal Poly, and Kansas State. That leaves Texas A&M, Iowa, West Virginia, and the rest of the California schools to send responses. 

The selfish part of Mary, the part that can't bear the thought of her boys ever leaving her, hopes Dean will choose Kansas State. But she also has dreams of her boys getting out of Kansas and seeing the rest of the world, going places she's never been. California might be a good start. In the end, though, it will be Dean's choice. Mary raised her boys to think for themselves and to know that whatever they do, she'll be proud of them. 

She checks the clock. Twenty-five past two; the boys won't be home for over an hour. If she doesn't find something else to do, she's going to crack and start steaming open the envelopes, so she decides to make a pie. There are still some peaches in the freezer, and the size of those envelopes tells her they're bound to be good news. News requiring a celebration. Mary washes her hands and sets to work. 

 

As soon as he and Sam get home from school, Dean sees the pile of mail on the kitchen counter and knows just what it is. Not what schools, precisely; the angle is too acute from here to see the return addresses, but it's a stack of fat envelopes, welcome-to-our-school sized. Plus, his mom is practically vibrating with her need for him to open them. He teases her, pretends he's going to go take a shower first, but she doesn't believe him, just hands him the letters and her mother's silver letter opener with the engraved handle. 

Resisting the urge to sift through them first, Dean just starts with the one on top—Texas—and pulls out what's inside. Acceptance letter, just like he thought, information package, and a letter saying that they will pay his tuition, room, and board if he'll play ball for them. He expected to be thrilled to get such a letter, and he is, but it's mixed with a sick feeling of dread. Texas is a long way away. 

Next in line is Cal Poly, even farther from home, and they offer him the same deal. Last in the stack is Kansas State. He's shaking when he opens that one, so badly he almost stabs himself with the opener. When he realizes he's batting a thousand so far, he takes a deep breath. All his options open. 

Sam is hyper at dinner, been hyper since Dean opened the college envelopes. Dean wants it to be about him. About Sam's maybe-fears that Dean's gonna leave and go someplace too far for them to hang out after school or do shit on the weekend. But that's fucked up. Not the wanting his family to miss him part—Dean's pretty sure that's normal as normal gets—but wanting Sam to miss him the way he's gonna miss Sam isn't right. 

He looks over and Sam's fidgeting, tapping the tines of his fork against his lip, looking at Dean, even though Dad's asking him about some test. When Dean catches his eye, Sam's mouth crooks in a smile before he gives Dad his full attention. 

It's shit like that that's making Dean nuts. For a while, Dean thought all the crazy in his head was just puberty—what fifteen-year-old isn't going to get hard with someone wiggling on his junk, even if that someone is his little brother and they're just wrestling to see who gets to ride shotgun or pick the movie? 

But lately, damn. Lately? Sam's been looking at him, all hot eyes and wet lips like he thinks he's in some porno or something. Like he's Tessa Bonwit, who's been trying to get into Dean's pants since they were freshmen. 

He and Sam'll be down in the basement playing pool, and Sam will press right up to him, nudge him over with a hip instead of saying, "'Scuse me," like he used to. He'll rub his cue against his cheek or stroke it with his fingers or his whole fist, driving Dean fucking insane with how he can feel that exact touch on his dick. And Dean knows he's old enough now to differentiate between sexy and sexy-to-him. Tessa deep-throating a popsicle while staring right at him didn't even make Dean's dick twitch. 

Trouble is, now Sam's nearly fifteen. And his touching and flirting might just be his own puberty's natural response to having a brother like Dean: baseball team's star pitcher, girls following him all over school, always willing to drive Sam around, take him out to eat, hang out with him, do whatever. 

Dean doesn't think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread or anything, but, no illusions, he is popular, funny, and a pretty freakin' awesome brother. There's also the possibility that Dean's cock is doing his thinking for him and Sam isn't flirting at all, just lost in thought with a pool cue in his fist, and he'd be completely horrified if he knew what Dean imagined. 

Not that Dean isn't horrified himself. It took him three years just to get over the fact that he was sometimes looking at the football player's asses as well as the cheerleader's legs when he went to the games, and that he was popping stiffies in the locker room as well as while watching Miss Ryerson's tits in her soft, clinging sweaters as she wrote on the board. He's over that now, but he's pretty sure wanting to push your brother down on a bed, ride the crack of his ass, climb in the shower with him and suck him off until he's shaking up against the wall, pull him under the stairs and kiss him breathless, aren't things a person should get used to. 

So, he decides not to think about it. Peach pie for dessert, and tomorrow's Friday, which means practice and then out with a few of the boys. Pizza, apparently, but Don popped an eyebrow when he said it, so Dean suspects he means for them to stop somewhere and get the munchies first. 

Dean would invite Sam, but he doesn't want his kid brother smoking pot, for one, and he thinks getting baked while Sam's there might not be a great idea. He announces to the table at large, "Can't make Sam's game tomorrow night. Got practice and then me and Don and Rick are going for pizza." 

"Have fun, honey," Mom answers. 

Dean does his best to ignore Sam's little frown. 

 

Sam's a good kid. Of course he is; his mother only tells him like seventeen times a day. His dad isn't really into saying stuff like that, but he says, "How'd that math test go?" and, "What time is your soccer game tomorrow? I finished up that alternator today so I can make it," and then, unlike Martin's dad, he actually does make it, and that's pretty much the same thing. 

And Sam's glad. He really is. It's just that sometimes he doesn't feel like being a good kid. And Martin, whose dad didn't come to the game, is sneaking off behind the school to smoke some pot, and Sam wants to go with him. Dean didn't come to Sam's game because he had pitching practice, and he's not gonna be home later because after practice it's pizza with the guys on his team. So Sam just wants to do something with his friends, which doesn't seem unreasonable, even if what he wants to do probably isn't classified as "good kid" behavior.

After the game, his mom says, "Do you have plans with your teammates?" 

Dad's arm is around her waist and she's talking to Sam but she's looking up at Dad with soft eyes, so Sam says, "Yes." 

Far be it from him to intrude on date night. Even if, ew, that's something he doesn't really want to think about. He got an A on his math test, and he saved three goals so his team won two-to-nothing, and he's not sitting around all pathetic and alone just 'cause his brother has other plans for the night. So he's still a good kid, even if he corners Martin in the locker room and says, "I'm in," and what he's in for is smoking up.

Sam is lounging on the ground, just taking the joint on its fourth trip around the circle that's really a triangle, when someone kicks his supporting arm out from under him, tipping him onto his back. From his new vantage point he has a distressingly clear view of his brother's crotch, angry face looming above it. 

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Dean says, voice like ice. 

"Winchester! Harmon, Lewis," Martin calls. "Pull up a chair."

Martin, Sam and their star center forward, Jonesy, are sitting on a patch of half-dead grass, not a chair in sight, and Martin's words strike Sam as hilarious. That's his first clue that maybe the weed they're smoking is working. 

"Sam, I asked you a question." Dean is still looming, and glowering, and Sam is still holding the joint. He's not totally sure that time hasn't somehow stopped. That might be the second clue. 

"Chill, Winchester," Don Lewis says. "Kinda being a hypocrite since you're here to do the same thing." 

"I'm nineteen," Dean says, taking a step closer to his friends. It puts him practically right over Sam's face. 

Sam can see that his brother has a hole in his jeans, high up on his thigh, right near his balls even, where the denim has worn with friction. He wonders for a second if the joint between his fingers would fit into the hole, and that's clue number three that he's totally baked. "Oh, god," he says and hands the joint to Martin without taking another hit. 

"He's only fourteen," Dean continues, still sounding way too angry. 

"Oh, god," Sam says again. "Dean, just shut up." Martin and Jonesy know Sam's a year, year-and-a-half younger than they are, but it's not something Sam goes around reminding them of if he can help it. 

From behind Dean's waist, Sam can see Don pulling a baggie out of his jacket, and Harmon is sitting down across from where Sam's lying. Apparently 'going out for pizza' is some kind of code for taking drugs. 

While Sam's mulling that over and wondering if it's a new code or if Dean's been doing this all along, Dean decides to listen to Sam and drops to the ground. Right next to Sam's head. And his thigh is there and looks way softer than the grass, and Sam starts to lean towards it. Dean intercepts him with a hand slid under his neck and down his back, and suddenly Sam's sitting up again, his brother holding him steady and looking at him, a mixture of worried and pissed off. 

"I'll be fifteen in a couple weeks," Sam says and shrugs him off. What he wants to do is lean into the V of his brother's armpit and press his face into Dean's neck and let Dean hold him up. The thought feels too loud in his head, though, like maybe Dean could hear him thinking it if he got too close. Like maybe they all could hear it. And Sam might be a little bit stoned, but he's a good kid. And good kids don't think like that about their brothers. Not out loud. In public. Where people who can maybe hear loud thoughts might hear them. 

Dean ignores him after that, sitting with his back towards Sam's side. But they're still so close they're almost touching, and it reminds Sam of the problem in Geometry class today where there were two pieces of pie left in the pie plate and they had to discover the area of the missing piece of pie between them. Because he's like the point of the triangle of his friends, and Dean is like the point of the triangle of his friends, but they're all in the same circle of grass with the points almost touching. 

Sam totally can't decide if he loves pot or hates it. 

Dean takes the joint Harmon passes him and gives Sam a little sideways glance before he raises it to his lips. He looks like he's done this before. Sam feels a weird little flurry of irritation that he didn’t know, and decides an extra-large hit off the next joint that comes his way might settle his stomach. 

All it does is make him cough, which makes everyone in both triangles laugh. But that makes Dean relax, and when Sam grins at him, he smiles back, a sloppy-hot twist of his lips that makes Sam's head buzz. It's totally not just the pot, because it's the same buzz he feels when they're downstairs playing pool and Dean smiles across the table after making a killer shot. The pot just makes it harder to ignore that his upstairs head isn't the only one that's affected. 

Confused by the buzzing, Sam passes his joint to Dean instead of sending it back to Martin, and Dean takes it. He puts both joints in his mouth, one on each side, and draws in a huge double hit. Sam can feel his own ribs expanding, swelling bigger and bigger as he breathes with his brother, like Dean can't get enough air on his own and needs Sam's help. 

When Dean finally exhales, it looks like an exhaust pipe on a frosty morning, and Sam feels like he's going to pass out. Dean hands one joint to Martin and one to Don, and when he settles again, somehow he and Sam end up leaning against each others' backs, holding each other up, making Sam feel safe and warm and prickly all over. 

At some point before the weed makes its way back to the Winchester boys, the other guys decide they've had enough, and the evening becomes less about smoking and more about arguing over who is going to end the season covered in more glory, the baseball team or the soccer team. Dusk has long since turned to full dark by the time they all agree to disagree and go their separate ways. 

Dean and Sam stand on the count of three, arms hooked at the elbows, using each other as leverage like Sam remembers doing at soccer camp one year. Whispering and hushing one another, the six of them make their way down the path beside the school to the parking lot out front. 

"I should smack your ass, Sammy," Dean says when they get in the car, away from the other boys. 

Sam wants to argue, say he has as much right to have fun with his friends as Dean does, tell him to fuck off. But his dick goes stiff at the words. He was half-hard already from Dean's heat at his back, but the thought of Dean's palm stinging hot on his ass incites a throbbing, thumping want. He whimpers, shifts his thighs, and hopes, prays, that Dean is genuinely engrossed in getting the key in the ignition and doesn't hear. 

 

John shuts the Honda's hood and then stretches up to crack his back. He's in a good mood, and even the bitch of a coolant leak isn't going to spoil it. His boy got into Kansas, full ride, so he's not gonna have to remortgage the house, and there's a chance Dean will stick around and keep helping out. Good mechanics who won't dip into the till or show up late or drunk or not at all are hard to find. So that's one thing. 

It's Friday, that's another, and he gets to knock off early for Sam's game, then he's taking his wife out to dinner, and, if he's in luck, home to bed before the boys get back from whatever their Friday nights have in store. To top it off, Jeff, John's part-time business partner and Saturday mechanic, got the news today that his mother's tumor isn't cancer and she doesn't need another surgery. 

"You heading out now, John?" calls Marco from underneath the Ford up on the lift. 

John looks at the clock. "Fifteen minutes or so. Just gonna do a little paperwork then be on my way. Need anything before I go?"

"No, I'm good." 

Marco is always good, even when he's got brake fluid in his hair and a car alarm he can't shut off and he's just dropped a wrench on his toe. John has never met a more optimistic man in his life. Frankly, it's disconcerting. But he knows his way around an engine and he'll work extra hours when John's stretched. John suspects he uses the office for sex some nights when he's working late, but the guy lives with his mother and grandmother and three sisters, and he's never left the door unlocked while he was about it, so John cuts him some slack. As long as he isn't doing it when Dean's there; John has enough trouble with the high school girls hanging around hoping to catch Dean's eye without introducing him to Marco's friends, too. 

There's enough time for a shower when he gets home, but that also means there's enough time to kiss his wife until she's laughing and breathless and shoving him away, complaining that they'll miss the kickoff. She's right, like always, but doesn't scold, just shoos him upstairs to change his shirt and wash his face while she gets the car started. 

Sam doesn't miss them, John's sure; there are at least sixty people in the stands by the time they get there, and when they sit down, Alan Parsons assures them they've only missed some play midfield. No shots on goal. 

Soccer's not really John's sport. He's a baseball man. When Dean's pitching, John feels like he's gonna burst with pride some days. And more than once, Mary's had to grab his arm and keep him from screaming abuse at the umpire. It's not that he isn't proud of Sam, just that he feels like something's missing: no crack of the bat, no wondering if the ball's gonna get to the base on time or if the baseman's gonna catch it. 

He admits that he's enjoyed the games more since Sam started playing goal, though. His younger son is fearless, flinging himself at anything that comes his way, and the sudden growth spurt which started in his arms means he intercepts a lot of it. This is only his third game since they moved him from half-back, but he seems to be a natural.

The final score is 3-0 and Sam and his teammates all dogpile on each other before slapping hands with the losing team. As kids start to scatter for the locker room, Sam comes over to say hi and that he's going out—will be home later. John's mind is already ahead on the spaghetti and meatballs he's going to order at Mary's favorite Italian place. 

It's not until they've ordered dinner and have a bottle of wine on the table between them that Mary asks, "Did Sam seem a little edgy to you after the game?"

John has no idea, but says, "No," because he thinks it's expected.

"We didn't even ask him where he's going." Mary frowns down into her glass and then at John.

"He's a good kid, Mary. And he knows if his friends start drinking he just needs to call us." John lays a reassuring hand on her wrist and gives it a light squeeze. They don’t often get to go out to dinner, and he doesn't want to spoil it with worry. 

"You're right," she says, and smiles. "I have no idea what I'm complaining about. I think I'm just used to knowing he's with Dean." 

"It's time he learned to get along without Dean, anyway." 

Mary's reply is interrupted by the arrival of their food, and John takes the opportunity to change the subject away from the boys and towards the two of them. They end up holding hands and gazing into each others' eyes like they're teenagers again, skipping dessert and getting home before eight o'clock. John wastes no time at all getting his wife upstairs. 

He wakes up about two and sees the hall light is off, the signal that the boys are home. Curling around Mary's back, John smiles contentedly and goes back to sleep.

 

It's cold and dark, and Sam's Batman clock says it's only 5:23 AM. When Sam was five and got the clock for Christmas, he wished it had hands because he thought only babies needed digital clocks. But now that he's seven, he knows most people have digital ones. Besides, he really likes Batman, and the numbers glow blue, which is cool. He doesn't want to be awake at 5:23, though. 

What woke him up is mom talking, and it's too early. If it were next week, it might be okay, because next Thursday is Thanksgiving, but this Thursday is just a normal one and they don't have to get up until the clock says 7:05 AM. 

Sam hears someone throwing up and water running and Mom talking again. Dean must be really sick and not just pretending like Sam thought he was last night when Dean said his head hurt too much to study for his math test. 

Sam gets up and pads out to the hall in his Superman pajamas. The light is on in the bathroom, and Mom is putting water in the bathtub. When he goes closer, Sam can see Dean kneeling on the floor by the toilet, shaking like when they spend too long playing in the snow. He doesn't even have his PJs top on and Sam wonders if he puked on it. Sam did that last time he was sick and it was totally gross. 

Dean notices Sam and pukes again. Nothing but some green spit comes out, and Dean starts crying. Sam doesn't like it when Dean cries. 

There's a soft blue blanket on Dean's bed, and it's just across the hall. Probably Dean needs a blanket, Sam thinks, so he runs and gets it. Mom is next to Dean on the floor, petting him while he pukes more green stuff, and when Sam gets back with the blanket she smiles at him and tucks it around Dean's shoulders. 

"Is he okay?" Sam's voice is small.

"He'll be fine, honey. Why don't you go back to bed?" Mom sounds normal, like everything really is okay, but Dean's all white and sweaty and Sam thinks his mom might be pretending. 

"I can get him some water," Sam says. He thinks his mom is going to say no, but then she says that would be nice. 

He doesn't want Dean to get throw-up on the glass they use for teeth brushing, so Sam goes down to the kitchen to get a different one. Dean is in the bath when he gets back, so Sam puts the drink down carefully on the corner of the tub. 

"Can you wake up your dad?" Mom says. "Ask him to turn the heat on and put clean sheets on Dean's bed." 

Dad is hard to wake up and Sam has to explain twice about the heat and the sheets, but finally he does what Mom said. Sam helps, getting more sheets out of the towel closet and bringing them in to Dad. He loans Dean his special ones with trains on them because they are really soft so they're extra good when you're sick and your skin hurts. 

Once the bed is made, Dad helps Dean get into it and then comes and makes Sam breakfast. It's only cereal, which Sam has been making himself for a long time already, but he doesn't say anything. While he's eating, he hears Dean puking again. It makes him not really hungry, but Dad gives him the look that says he'd better finish, so he does. 

Mom promises that nothing bad will happen while Sam's at school, and Dad promises, too, and even drives Sam so he won't be late. He stalls a really long time, though, because Dean's crying again and that must mean that something really bad is happening. Dean just doesn't usually cry except for really bad things. Sam's teacher is extra nice but Sam still spends all day wanting to go home. 

Dad picks him up after school because Mom took Dean to the doctor and seven is too young to be home alone except if Dean's there, and even that's only okay if Mom or Dad is going to be back soon. Dad says the doctor took Dean's blood, but they have to wait to find out what disease he has. He also said Dean doesn't have to go to the hospital, which makes Sam feel a little better. 

On Thanksgiving, they don't have any people over because Dean is still really sick, but just before Christmas he starts to get better. He still can't go to school, because he gets tired if he even sits up too long or does too much stuff. Some days he can come downstairs and watch TV, but when he's too tired or doesn't want to, he likes it if Sam comes in his room to play with him. 

They make a game where Dean's bed is a camper van like the Johnsons across the street have, and Sam gets his atlas out and they plan trips all around, having adventures. Dean's sick for the rest of the school year, only starting to get back to how he was before after Sam's birthday. It's a long time. Sometimes that spring Mom or Dad sends Sam outside to play or makes plans for him to go to another kid's house after school, but even if it's fun, a lot of times he wishes he were playing the camper game or just watching TV with Dean. 

 

When Dean first gets mono, he's scared that he's going to die. His throat feels like his arm did the time he leaned on Mom's curling iron, only worse, and he keeps puking until he can't breathe. The doctor says he has to drink this orange stuff that is supposed to be good for him, but it usually makes him puke even more. Then his nose starts bleeding and won't stop, and his fever goes so high that Mom and Dad have to put him in the bath with ice cubes. He doesn't really remember that part, but Sam tells him about it later, and he says it was really scary. 

After the high fever night, Dean starts to get better. He isn't puking anymore, and he can drink the orange stuff and regular water and even juice. But his head still hurts, and he can't even have a whole shower by himself because it makes him so tired. Just walking downstairs makes him fall asleep for two hours, sometimes. He hates that almost more than the puking.

At Christmas, he falls asleep while they're opening presents, and Dad carries him up to bed. When he wakes up, Sam is there playing with his new Hot Wheels on the floor, waiting to help Dean open the presents he missed. Dean's pretty sure he can open them himself, but he lets Sam help anyway because he's so excited. 

By the end of January, Dean's feeling enough better that Mom lets Steve come over to have some cake for Dean's birthday. Steve tells Dean that he wishes he would get to stay home from school for such a long time, but Dean thinks he's crazy. It's way boring, and the headaches mean that Dean can't even do homework, so he might have to do the year again. The doctor says that he will get better, but it's hard to believe. 

Dean's friends don't usually come over to play, and if they do, it's just for an hour to watch Scooby-Doo or something and then they go home, because Dean can't play ball or anything. One time, Steve and Marcus both come over and they play Nintendo, and Dean falls asleep on the couch which is totally embarrassing. 

Mostly, Dean sleeps and waits for Sam to get home so they can play road trip. Sam sits right up by Dean's head and spreads out his big book of maps on their knees and then they close their eyes and twirl their fingers over the page and on the count of three drop them down. Wherever Sam's finger lands is their start point and wherever Dean's lands is where they go to. They pick the best roads with Mom's old state guides to help choose places to stop and where to sleep and things. 

If Dean's feeling good, he drives and is in charge of where they are and what they're passing by, but if he's too tired, Sam does it. At the end of the drive, they both lie down on Dean's pillow and look at the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling and pretend they're camping out under the real stars. Or they pretend to be lying in the van, all snug and safe, while bears maraud outside. 

 

Sam feels lazy in his bones but prickly in his skin the whole way home from the field, and he has to hold on to the edge of the seat with both hands to keep from sliding over and searching with half-numb fingers for the hole in Dean's jeans. 

On the porch, waiting for Dean to get the key in the front door, Sam wants to kiss his brother more than he's wanted anything ever in his whole life. It's not the first time, or even the fiftieth, but it's never actually hurt his whole chest like this to want it and not do it. 

He only realizes that he's shifting from foot to foot when Dean reaches out and grabs his arm. For a flash, Sam's sure Dean wants to kiss him too—that he will kiss him—but then, "Settle down," Dean says. "If Mom and Dad are still awake they'll know something's up if you're fidgeting like that."

Sam has to sway backwards to avoid landing face first in the curve of Dean's neck, propelled forward by imagination and the hand around his wrist. 

"Woah," Dean says, and the next thing Sam knows, Dean is catching him with a hand on his nape. 

"Brother," Sam says, he hopes in his head, but from the no duh look Dean's giving him, he suspects it's out loud. Either way, it distracts Sam long enough that he doesn't do any of the grabbing-touching-licking things he's thinking about, so he's grateful. 

"Jesus," Dean mutters and opens the front door. Then, "Quiet. Looks like they're asleep."

Sam does as he's told, following Dean upstairs, brushing his teeth when Dean pushes him towards the sink, and then stripping off his jeans and falling into bed. 

His dick is already stiff in his underwear when he rolls onto his stomach to grind into the mattress. He means to go slow and lazy, but he can imagine the crook of his elbow against his forehead is Dean's thigh from when they were lying on the grass, and Sam can taste the sweat on Dean's skin through that hole high up between his brother's legs. He can feel Dean's jeans in the fabric of his pillowcase and he shoves his hand down, squeezes, writhes on his palm and comes, whimpering, teeth clamped on his forearm. 

Next morning, Sam can still smell the smoke in his clothes and decides that he should do the laundry instead of leaving it for Mom. After breakfast, he strips all the beds and takes the sheets and the contents of everyone's hampers down to the basement. 

Mom has gone to teach her class, and Dad and Dean are in the driveway washing the pickup and Dean's Impala. The laundry room in the basement is musty-smelling and dim, and Sam feels all alone down there. He puts the sheets and towels in to wash first and, while the machine is filling, sorts the clothes like Mom taught him. 

When he gets to Dean's jeans, Sam lifts them to his face and sniffs them. They smell of smoke and dirt, and a little of fabric softener still. They must have been clean when Dean put them on yesterday. When he looks, Sam sees that the hole is actually a frayed patch, not like it looked from below; the white Sam mistook for Dean's boxers is actually threads pulling away from the inseam. He pushes his finger easily between the threads and decides it is a hole—but a secret one that only he knows about. He, and maybe Dean. 

With a last sniff he can't resist even though it makes his chest burn hot and his ears strain towards the high cellar window to hear the sound of Dean and Dad still busy in the driveway, Sam drops the jeans into the basket of dark clothes and goes upstairs. He has homework to do while the sheets wash.

 

Saturday night, Sam knocks on Dean's door claiming he accidentally mixed up their shirts when he brought up the laundry earlier, but he doesn't actually look in the basket, just sits on Dean's bed and asks, "Are you mad about last night, Dean?" like he really cares about the answer. 

Dean is, a little, but more that Sam was smoking pot behind his back than because Sam was smoking it at all. And more because it makes him want to lie down next to Sam and smoke with him right here, and he really shouldn't want to smoke with Sam, because even with the other guys there it was almost impossible not to thread his fingers through Sam's hair or roll him on the ground and hump his leg like a freaking dog or something. In the car it felt like something heavy and wrong was wrapping around them and it all scares the hell out of Dean. 

He is mad, but not at Sam. 

"Why didn't you come to me if you wanted to get stoned?" he says, which doesn't really answer Sam's question and isn't at all what he meant to say. 

"Was just—dunno. Hanging out with my friends." Sam moves up, making it clear that he's giving Dean room to sit too. 

There's no reason for it to be awkward, it's just Sammy, Dean thinks, and sits. Neither of them say anything for a minute and then speak over each other, Sam saying, "God, I was so baked," and Dean saying, "Was some good shit though." They laugh and the awkward dissipates. 

They end up talking until almost midnight about the summer Dean was Sam's age and they took a road trip to Colorado with Mom and Dad and camped for a week. By the time Sam yawns and says he should go to bed, they're lying head to foot, Sam's thigh pressed tight to Dean's hip, and Dean's forgotten that things were ever uncomfortable. 

Sunday, Sam helps Dean make flashcards for Monday's test on the periodic table, and only makes fun of him a little for leaving the studying until the last minute. He is wearing last year's pajama pants which don't come up high enough on his hips and stop about four inches above his ankles, and Dean has trouble concentrating on the elements he's supposed to be learning. 

Sam keeps stretching, making his shirt pull even higher, displaying a hand-span of pale belly that Dean can't stop thinking about measuring with his own hand. He starts to wonder if his brother really is flirting, which is a sure sign Dean's going around the bend. Sam's kind of a geek, sure, but he's so normal it hurts, and normal kids don't try to seduce their older brothers with too-small nightwear and chemistry flashcards. 

Monday, they watch a movie with Mom and Dad, and instead of sitting in the armchair or on the sofa with the rest of them, Sam sits on the floor next to Dean's leg. Fifteen minutes or so into the movie, he rests his head back, so from Mom's angle it probably looks like he's lounging against the sofa's arm, but his cheek is pressed against Dean's thigh, making it hard for Dean to breathe. 

When Sam starts brushing his fingers along the skin just below the elastic ankles of Dean's sweats, Dean needs to ask Dad for a pillow before he ends up startling his mother with a boner. 

He spends the rest of the film clutching the cushion on his lap, where it also serves the purpose of keeping his hands off his brother's hair or the insanely tempting thin-stretched skin on the side of his neck. This is not ambiguous at all—Sam's hot cheek and the fingers stroking slow and firm up under the elastic and halfway to Dean's knee. Sam is facing the TV, but Dean suspects that he has no more idea what's going on than Dean does. 

By the time the credits roll, Dean's almost in tears—crazy with the effort of not coming all over his mother's throw pillow. He would seriously like to use it to smother Sam. 

Fortunately, he doesn't have to figure out how he's going to get up without parading his predicament in front of the whole family. Dad asks Sammy to get the video out of the player and then gets up himself to take the popcorn bowl into the kitchen. Mom says, "Damn, I forgot to call Carole," and hurries off, muttering something about it not being too late. 

Taking a deep breath and relaxing his hold on the pillow, Dean escapes upstairs to take care of his little problem, trying resolutely to think only about sliding his dick between Miss Ryerson's tits as he does.

Sam is standing outside the bathroom door when Dean comes out, expression flitting between scared, hopeful, and pleased with himself. Dean's pretty sure they need to talk, and absolutely certain he's not having the conversation when Mom and Dad are likely to wander up to bed at any moment.

"Tomorrow, after practice," Dean says, "let's go for a drive."

Sam smiles like Dean said tomorrow's Christmas. Like it never occurs to him that Dean might say they can't do this. That it's wrong and dangerous and sick and they just can't. 

 

Mary's parents were killed by a bear on a hunting trip to North Dakota the weekend John asked her to marry him. He still feels guilty about that sometimes. If she'd gone with them like she was supposed to, could she have somehow kept them from getting in between the bear and her cubs or made sure help came in time? She never hesitated when he asked her to stay in town with him that day, and she's never indicated since that she blames him, but when their son is born, John is quick to suggest they name him Samuel after her father. 

"I thought we might name him Dean after my mother," Mary replies, surprising John. "She always hoped I would marry you, you know."

John hadn't known. He always thought both Mary's parents disapproved of him. 

"And then Michael after your father?" she goes on when he doesn't reply.

"Dean Michael Winchester," John says. 

Mary's smile is tired, but she looks as happy as John feels.

 

Mary's had a backache all day, but it still comes as an absolute and complete surprise to her when her water breaks as she leans down to give Dean a kiss when he and John get back from the park. Still, she thinks she has hours and feels calm when she sends John to call the hospital. He's still on the phone when suddenly the pain becomes breathtaking and she wants to push. 

She won't let John knock and see if they can leave Dean with a neighbor, demanding instead that they just get in the car and go. Just as well, because her second son is in a hurry and ends up being born into John's hands while the nurse tries to get Mary up onto the bed, Dean right out in the hallway asking why he can't come in the room with his mommy and daddy. 

She doesn't argue this time when John insists they name him after her father. Samuel Campbell was never a man to wait around for other people's schedules, and her youngest looks to take after him in that way, at least. She hopes that her Sam isn't as bullheaded, but her father was a good man and she's proud of him, even if he never should have followed a Wendigo back to its lair, forcing his wife to go after him because they were too deep in the woods for her to get help.

 

Sam has no idea what is going on in any of his classes; all he can think about is the drive Dean wants to go on after school. 

In World Studies his desk is in the back corner, and during the movie about the Nile River, Sam slides low in his seat, palm heavy on his dick, remembering his brother's calf flexing under his hand. He's still hard when class is over, and he's grateful for his baggy jeans and extra-large textbook on the way to math. 

Sam's almost certain he didn't imagine that Dean was jerking off last night. And Dean didn't kick him away even though Sam kept waiting, getting braver and more turned on the longer Dean let him touch. 

Thinking Dean would shove or at least nudge him off, Sam hadn't even considered the fact their parents were sitting right there until they were an hour into the movie and he had his hand and half his arm up the leg of Dean's sweats. By then, he probably couldn't have stopped even if Dad point-blank asked him what the hell he was doing. But Mom and Dad didn't notice and Dean didn't stop him. 

Dean didn't stop him.

When his last class finally ends, Sam heads to the locker room to change for practice. Dean's there too, and they catch each others' eyes, but don't say a word. Sam suspects the way Dean looks carefully in the other direction while they're changing means the same thing as Sam's own averted gaze. Mom noticing Sam squeezing Dean's calf is one thing. His teammates catching him growing wood while staring at his brother's naked ass would be a whole different disaster. 

The assistant soccer coach is off, so practice is just a scrimmage, which leaves Sam time to imagine how things will go when practice is finally over. Dean will take him somewhere no one can find them, and maybe he'll kiss Sam right there in the front seat. 

Or maybe they'll find some grass to sit on, and Sam can find that hole in Dean's jeans with his finger, or Dean will push him down and roll on top like when they wrestle, only this time Sam won't have to stop himself from rubbing on Dean's hip or thigh, won't have to keep his fingers out of Dean's hair, or god, out of Dean's pants. 

That thought makes Sam start to reach for his shorts, but he's interrupted by someone shouting his name and the ball flying towards him. 

The rest of practice he tries his hardest to keep his mind on the game. 

 

Coach is about ready to have a cardiac arrest by the end of practice. Dean's throwing like he's never seen a baseball before, or, as Coach prefers, like he's a three-fingered alien from a planet without gravity. Dean's trying to figure out what he's supposed to say to Sam, though. And it's hard to throw strikes when your dick wants to grind up against your brother's stomach and you're trying to figure out how the hell to tell him (and it) that nothing like that can ever happen. Ever. 

Coach keeps him almost twenty minutes after practice, but Dean doesn't have to worry about Sam wondering where he is, given everyone within a hundred yards of the gym can hear the shouting. When he finally escapes Coach's office, Dean finds Sam sitting on the bench outside the gym, knees folded up to his chin, eyes glued to the door. 

"Ready?" Dean asks, and Sam nearly falls on his face in his haste to jump up. Dean tries to grab his arm to steady him and ends up with a hand cupped around Sam's waist. Vivid memories of Sam's fingers on him the night before and the feel of Sam's smooth skin make Dean snatch his hand away, and send a shock of lust through his belly. It doesn't help that Sam's looking at him like he's Mom's famous roast beef. 

Before Dean can step back, Sam does this thing where he punches Dean in the arm and knocks his forehead against Dean's shoulder. It looks from the outside, Dean's almost sure, like a move any teammate or brother might make, a hearty hello, but it feels like Sam just kissed him in the middle of campus where anyone could see. 

His first instinct is to run. Or, no, his first instinct is to actually kiss his brother the way it felt like Sam kissed him. His first instinct should have been to run, and he knows that, and that has to count for something. 

Instead, he says, "You hungry?"

Sam's about to say, Yes. For you, Dean, or something equally cheesy and wrong and dangerous, Dean can just tell, so he follows up with, "We could go get burgers or something," before Sam can answer.

"Dean," Sam says, and rolls his eyes, and walks off towards the parking lot. 

Dean is the older brother. Really, he is. Jesus.

The passenger-side lock on the Impala has been playing up the last couple days, so Dean doesn't even bother trying to struggle with it—lets Sam in on the driver's side. Sam scoots over just enough to allow Dean room to slide in behind the wheel, not an inch farther. "Um, Sam?" He's so close Dean has to twist his head right to the side to see him.

"Where we going?" Sam asks, and moves enough to give Dean elbow room to steer. He's still right there though, gawky knee crowding up against Dean's thigh. 

"McDonalds?" Dean offers, though he knows he's probably going to get Sam's raised eyebrow again. 

He doesn't, though, just a nudge with Sam's knee and Sam's fingers fluttering in an aborted caress on his ribs. "How 'bout that dirt lane by Gasper's farm? No one uses it now they've paved the old road," Sam says, like he's thinking they should super-size the fries, not like he's just told his brother to take him to make-out point. 

 

The building Mary works in is old, and the air conditioning tends to die when the outside temperature hits 90 degrees. Fortunately, it doesn't happen all that often. 

Unfortunately, despite it being the first week of June and not mid-July, it was already 92 when she got to work this morning. It seems like she's spent half the day rearranging fans and spritzing water at the dogs they couldn't send home. 

It's the last day of school, minimum day for both the boys, who are probably home right now smearing peanut butter on the counters and drinking the soda she's saving for Dean's graduation party tomorrow. Eighth grade, and the boys are expected to wear suits. They're going to broil on the bleachers set up outside the gym. The school's VP was in at lunchtime to get flea spray, though, and she said if the weather holds they'll tell the boys to leave off their jackets. No mention of moving the ceremony inside where it's air conditioned. 

Mary looks at the clock. 1:48. Mrs. Loomis with her mangy hamster is late. With any luck, she won't show up until Mary's gone home, and Dylan can deal with her. He loves rodents of all stripes. Twelve minutes and she can get in the car. She fixes the fan so it's blowing directly at her neck and waits.

When she gets home, skin chilled from the car's A/C, she finds the boys' backpacks on the floor, but no other sign of them. The kitchen is clean, the TV is off. Dean knows he isn't allowed to leave Sam home alone and go out with his friends; Sam only just turned eleven, and though he's mature for his age, he's also curious, and if there were a fire or something, Mary's not completely sure Sam wouldn't sit and watch it to see what would happen. 

Dean's friends don't seem to mind Sam following them around, playing ball with them, going down to the drug store on their bikes, and she's grateful for that. They should have left her a note, though. 

Then she hears a shriek from the backyard and goes over to the French doors. A shriek of laughter, from the look of it. Dean's on his back in the grass (which needs to be watered again already, damn this heat), trying to protect his stomach from Sam's tickling fingers. He has over a foot of height and at least thirty pounds on his brother, but Dean isn't throwing him off or trying to twist Sam's arms behind his back. 

He's protective of Sammy, even more since Dean moved up to junior high and found out that without Dean around looking after him, he was losing his lunch money to Jimmy Stapleman. Mary's been waiting for her oldest son to get tired of dragging his little brother around with him, but so far that hasn't happened. 

Dean kicks and Mary sees that it might not be through lack of trying that he hasn't thrown Sam off yet. Sam's sitting on Dean's hips, legs hooked around Dean's thighs in a wrestling move his grandfather Campbell would be proud of. 

Mary was just a year younger than Sam when her parents started training her to hunt, mostly just finding things in books, but running, defensive moves, wrestling—they were all on the early agenda, too. She's never taught her boys any of the things she came to know about long before she was ready—Is there ever a good time?—but she is who she is, and obviously she's passed some of that along to her kids. 

"Boys!" she calls, opening the door. "Did you eat lunch yet?"

Using Sam's distraction, Dean takes the opportunity to flip him on his back and gets in a moment of tickling of his own before he jumps up and runs to the house. "I'm starving", he says with feeling. "Sam wanted peanut butter and I wanted tuna and we decided to wrestle for it, and then we forgot to eat at all."

Mary ruffles Dean's hair as he passes her, dismayed a little at how far up she has to reach to do it. Sammy's still her little boy, though, and she ignores his protests to snatch a hug as he follows his brother into the kitchen. 

"Dean," she hears him say, drawing it out into a whine, "tuna's gross when it's so hot out."

"Peanut butter's worse. It's all sticky."

"There're ice cream sandwiches in the freezer," Mary interrupts. "Eat those and we'll have an early dinner. Maybe even go out to eat. I can't be bothered to cook after the day I've had." 

A year ago Sam would have asked why, and by next year Dean might ask her what's wrong, but now they're both at the age where her day without A/C isn't even a blip on their radar. "Take those outside," she adds over the clamor of them shoving to get to the freezer door first. "I'm going to have a shower."

"'Kay, Mom," Sam says to her retreating back, then it's thundering feet through the dining room again to the back door, and the house returns to quiet. 

 

Sam is pretty sure that Toby Mullins has the coolest basement in Lawrence. Maybe in all of Kansas. His dad is a construction guy, so they didn't have to just keep everything like it was when they moved in. It's divided into two parts. One has a bar with a sink and a fridge and a real poker table with green felt. That part is off limits, because they're only in junior high. 

Angelica, Toby's older sister, got to use the poker table with her friends for her seventeenth birthday party. Toby said he thinks his dad might let him use it when he turns fourteen next year. Because he's also kind of a dick, he said he doubted Sam would be able to come because Sam would only be twelve then. Sam's met Toby's dad, though, and he's pretty sure Toby's lying about getting to use it anyway. His dad's real picky about the poker table. 

The other side of the basement, anyone can go in. It has a big, squishy sofa and giant pillows and two leather beanbag chairs and a giant rear-projection TV that Toby told them all about at his Halloween party. Dean rolled his eyes at Sam from across the room and Sam almost laughed out loud because Dean's pirate costume had an eye patch and so it looked funnier than usual. He stuffed a Tootsie Pop in his mouth instead, which was good, because Toby doesn't like to be laughed at. 

Finally, Angelica came in and told him to shut up. She put on the movie, and they all sat there eating chips and candy while they watched Michael Meyers chase Jamie Lee Curtis. 

Now it's April, and they're at Toby's birthday party. There's cake instead of candy and it's just the six boys from their class, not the whole neighborhood, so Dean's not around to roll his eyes when Toby pulls out a ruler from between two sofa cushions. 

"What's that for?" Gabe—who asks questions all the time—asks. 

"We're going to measure our dicks," Toby answers, like that's the coolest idea ever. 

Sam's pretty sure it's not the coolest idea ever. Toby was looking right at him when he said it, and Sam knows that it's just another way for Toby to make fun of him for being younger than the rest of them. None of the other kids care about that, but for some reason Toby seems to take it personally that Sam skipped a grade and he didn't. His suspicions are confirmed when Toby says, "Winchester first."

"No," Sam says petulantly and then wishes that he'd said something like, 'I can't go before the birthday boy.' Dean would have thought to say that, or something cooler, probably. 

He's saved by Rob, who has five older brothers. "Me first," Rob says, snatching the ruler from Toby's hand. "Give you weenies something to live up to." 

Right there in front of everyone, Rob unzips his pants and sticks his hand and the ruler in his underwear. "Four and three quarters inches," he says, pulling the ruler out again with his thumb on the mark. 

"Hey, no cheating," Toby complains. "You have to show us."

"You just want to see my dick, cocksucker," Rob answers, but he pulls it out anyway and holds the ruler up against it. 

He wasn't cheating. Sam wonders if Rob has done this with his brothers and that makes him wonder if Dean's ever done it with his friends. Dean doesn't change his clothes in front of Sam much anymore, but Sam can feel Dean's dick when they wrestle, and sometimes when he sits on the couch in his PJs and folds one leg up, Sam can see it through the material. It seems like it's pretty big, but Dean is sixteen, so obviously it's going to be bigger than Sam's. Sam's is getting bigger though, and he's started getting hair. 

While he was distracted, the ruler got handed to Mike who is now stretching his dick as long as he can to try to make it four and a half inches. Everyone is shouting at him which is what pulled Sam back to the room. "Fine," Mike says, "whatever," and tucks himself in while Toby grabs the ruler and shoves it at Sam. 

Rob laughs. "Jesus, Tobe, you want to hold it for him too? You're in a hell of a rush for Sammy-boy to get his junk out." 

"Fuck you, O'Connell," Toby says and spins away to give the ruler to Carl. "I don't care who goes next."

Sam feels his neck go hot and prickly, and he wants to go upstairs and get a drink. He wishes Dean were here to show all these jerks how lame they are. And, shit! perfect timing, his stupid dick decides to get stiff, right when the ruler is bound to come his way again in just a minute. This is way worse than popping wood in gym or while watching TV or even wrestling with Dean, which is embarrassing because of how good it feels to have Dean on top of him, but at least Dean's never said anything, which is so not going to be true about Toby. 

"Gotta' take a piss," he says, and flees upstairs before anyone can say anything. 

Peeing, some cold water, and the almost-always-fool-proof image of the Taylor's dog puking up a rat solves Sam's problem, and he hardly even jumps when Mrs. Mullins corners him on his way back to the basement and asks if they're having fun. She loads him up with another bag of chips, a six-pack of Sprite, and some caramel popcorn. By the time he gets back downstairs, everyone is bored with the measuring game and they fall on the food. Several times before all the parents come to pick them up, Sam catches Toby looking at him funny, and he doesn't know what to think. 

Mom sends Dean to him, and Sam can feeling himself going red when Dean asks what they did and did Sam have a good time.

"Jeeze, Sammy," Dean says when he glances over after pulling out into the street. "What'd you do, play spin the bottle?" 

"No!" Sam says, horrified at the thought of Toby looking at him the way he did and spinning a kissing bottle. "There were only boys there."

"Angelica might have come down, helped you all out." Dean punches him lightly on the arm and waggles his eyebrows like a bad comedian. 

Sam's pretty sure that Angelica wouldn't kiss any of Toby's friends if they paid her, but he bets she'd kiss Dean. Probably lots of girls want to kiss him. 

"Did she ever help you out?" Sam asks, even though he's not sure he really wants to know. Angelica scares him a little.

"You've got to be kidding me."

"Isn't she pretty?" Sam wonders. He can't really tell what girls are pretty or not. When he told Gabe he thought Susie Chen was pretty, Gabe laughed at him. 

"Sure she is," Dean says. "But she just broke up with Tony Quackenbush. And there is not an ass in this world hot enough to risk pissing that guy off."

Sam wants to ask what girls Dean has kissed, and what it was like. If he gets a hard on when he kisses them and if they ever touch it. But just thinking about that makes him all squirmy-prickly, so he stays quiet. Besides, that seems more like a question to ask at night when it's dark. Not on a Saturday afternoon with sunlight glaring through the window and Dean giving him sideways looks while he tries to keep his eyes on the road. 

"Toby's just kind of a jerk," Sam says instead.

Dean agrees as they pull into the driveway. Sam's glad to be home. 

 

Alexis Newman asks Dean to the Junior/Senior prom in the middle of physics class. They're conducting an experiment on Newton's laws by rolling wooden carts into various objects. It's kind of boring, but also noisy, so it's not a bad time to have a conversation about something not related to physics. 

He knows not many sophomore boys get asked to prom, but Alexis is two months younger than he is and he's pretty sure she had a crush on him way back before he lost a year to mono, when they were in fourth grade together. He should be a junior, so it kinda makes sense she'd pick Dean after her asshole boyfriend Troy dumped her for the head cheerleader when he made captain of the basketball team.

"Sure," he says to her slightly fumbling question, and they talk about who they might double with and where the after-parties are rumored to be while they take measurements and record data about inertia and friction. 

Dean never really considered going out with Alexis before; she's pretty in a pulled-together, tidy way, and a little shy, a decent physics student, and she works on the school paper, but he doesn't know much else about her. She and Troy got together in eighth grade, and Dean was taught that you don't horn in on other people's girlfriends.

Now that she's asked him to prom, he can't help wondering if it would be good for him to be her boyfriend. Assuming she wants a boyfriend, and not just a prom date. He's been getting— distracted, lately, and a girlfriend might be just the thing to keep him on track. 

After practice, Dean is last into the showers; his teammates are in various states of soapy and nearly finished by the time Coach is done talking to him. When his eyes start to wander through the steam towards Cole rinsing soap off his ass, Dean thinks instead of Alexis wrapping her arms around him during a slow dance. He only realizes his mistake when he goes to soap his nuts and ends up running his fingers down a growing erection. The only advantage is that he doesn't blush bright red when Cole turns towards him. He still turns up the cold and finishes as quickly as possible, saving jerking his meat for the privacy of his bedroom later. 

Dinner is spaghetti and meatballs, Dad's favorite, and it's Dean's turn to do the dishes. Sam offers to help if Dean will help him with his diorama for world history after. Dean makes Sam wash and he dries, figuring it's only fair, since no one helped him with his diorama when he was in seventh grade. 

Once Mom and Dad go into the other room to watch TV, Sam starts flicking water at Dean's chest. Snapping the dishtowel at Sam's ass is the logical retaliation. Every time he does it, Sam squeaks, "Dean!" and flicks more water at him. Dean can't tell if Sam is pink from the hot water or indignation, but the whole thing is making Dean hard again. This is how he keeps getting distracted. 

"Bitch," Dean finally says when Sam splashes half a glass of water all down his front. "Finish them yourself. I need to go change."

"Sorry," Sam says. "Sorry." And then, "You'll still help me, right?" when Dean just keeps walking towards the stairs. 

"Whatever," Dean answers. Even though he'll hear about it from Dad later, when he gets to his room he slams the door. Fucking Sam and his never knowing when to stop. 

Dean jerks his shirts off over his head, not bothering to unbutton the top one, and uses the back to dry his chest before flopping down on the bed. Alexis, he thinks. Prom dress hiked up around her waist, she's guiding his fingers down between her legs, panties wet from kissing him. He's got his hand in the open V of his jeans, cupped around his dick through his boxers, rubbing the wet with his thumb, wet like Alexis would be. Wet because Sam— 

No. Alexis. Pushing his hand through his fly, Dean rubs faster, hard on his shaft, cotton a maddening friction on the head. Wet, wet, wet; it takes him less than a minute to come, jizz cooling quickly in his underwear. Shoves them and his jeans off, bundles everything into the laundry and pulls on his sweats and sleeping shirt. Just in time, too; Sam's knocking on his door asking if now is okay to do his homework. 

Taking a deep breath and letting it all out, Dean opens the door and lets his brother in.

 

John Winchester missed a lot of things when he was in Vietnam. Some things a guy could write home about, some he couldn't, but he's pretty sure the thing he missed most was chocolate malted milkshakes. He's been back over a week now, and this is his first chance to come down and get one. Sitting at the counter, smell of coffee and burgers on the grill, sound of the shake mixer drowning out the men at the booth in the corner; John can taste it already. 

Pete's getting a glass from under the counter when Mary Campbell comes in and sits down in front of him. "Chocolate malted, Pete, please," she says. She's grown up some since John left and he has to remind himself not to stare. 

"Sorry," Pete answers. "Out'a malt. How's plain chocolate do you?"

"Um—" Mary starts, but John interrupts her.

"She can have mine, Pete. I'll take plain chocolate."

Mary looks over at him. "John?" she asks. "Winchester?"

He eyes the empty stool next to her and she beckons him to it. "Leave the man his shake, Pete. I'll take chocolate."

They argue back and forth about it until Pete dumps both shakers and two empty glasses down in front of them and says, "You could always stop fighting and share." 

So they do. 

They sit at the counter until the plain shake is gone, and then Mary orders some fries and they move to a booth by the window. They talk about high school, what it was like after John left and how it's still the same, Mary catches him up on some of the kids he used to know. She lets him know she'll listen if he wants to talk about being away, but she doesn't push it. He tells her a little about some of the guys he met, a little about boot camp, but he doesn't much want to remember what it was like otherwise. He'd rather talk about things that suit a pretty girl and a chocolate malted. 

Not that Mary's just a pretty girl. They were in different crowds at school, so he never got to know her well, but she knows more about politics and what's going on in the town than he ever would have guessed. When Pete finally kicks them out at midnight, John offers to walk her home. "That'd be nice," she says, smiling. 

At her corner, she stops him. "I'm fine from here," she says. 

"I'll walk you the rest of the way."

"No, really. I'm fine. Dad's not thrilled about boys walking me home." She looks a little embarrassed. "But if you're not busy tomorrow," she goes on, "we could try again with the malted. Pete gets a delivery Tuesday mornings."

John is supposed to take his dad bowling tomorrow, but he says, "I'd love that." 

"It's a date, then." 

John doesn't expect her to lean up and kiss his cheek, but when she does, he guesses that is the thing he missed most while he was in the jungle. Girls like Mary, with soft hands and softer lips. He'll happily give up malted shakes forever if he can keep her.

"Night," she says, backing towards her house, waving her fingers at him. 

"See you tomorrow," he calls, just loud enough for her to hear. 

From the shadow of her neighbor's tree, he watches her climb the front steps and go inside. That's when he decides that he wants to see her every tomorrow from now until he dies.

 

They're in the car, headed someplace private, and Sam feels like he's gonna fly right out of his skin. He waits until they're on the road out of town before he gives in to the urge to put his hand on Dean's leg. 

It's better and worse than last night. He misses the feel of Dean's skin, but they're alone, and his hand is, like, inches from Dean's dick, and Dean jerked off right after the movie last night so he must want Sam's hands on him. 

"I'm driving," Dean says, his first words since Sam suggested the farm road, but he doesn't push Sam away or move his leg, so Sam keeps his hand there. He is careful not to be too distracting though, because Dean might tell him to stop, or worse, crash the car. Sam doesn't analyze the fact that the crash only seems worse because it would mean they might never get to Gasper's lane. 

When they do get there, Dean parks, and instead of turning towards Sam, he climbs out of the car. Sam's throat drops into his stomach, but he gets out too, trusting Dean knows what he's doing. 

This part of the lane abuts a stand of poplars fed by a tributary of the irrigation ditch that borders the farm. By the time Sam is out of the car, Dean's already disappearing between the nearest trees. 

Sam finds him sitting, straddling a fallen tree out of sight of the road, looking down at his hands spread wide against the bark between his thighs. He doesn't look up when Sam sits down facing him. 

"I want to kiss you so fucking bad right now," Sam says. 

"Sam!" Dean's head jerks up and he looks panicked. 

Sam didn't mean to upset his brother, didn't even really mean to say anything about the kissing out loud, but it's the truth and he's not going to take it back. "Can't stop thinking about it, Dean. About touching you. So long. I just—" He puts his palms on Dean's knees, fingers curling down towards the log. 

"Sam," Dean says again, quieter this time. "You're my brother." Like that's the whole argument decided right there. 

"You think I'm the first guy who's ever wanted to fuck his brother?" It sounds different to how Sam thought it would, saying it out loud. "I want to fuck my brother," he says again just to hear it. Lightning doesn't split the sky, the birds don’t stop tweeting, neither he nor Dean burst into flames. 

"But you're—"

"I swear to Christ, Dean, if you say I'm too young, I'm going to hit you." 

"That's not—"

"Were you jerking off last night after the movie? Just tell me that."

Dean nods, not meeting Sam's eyes.

"Thinking about me? Touching you, like this?" Sam slides his hands upwards, fingers turning in, heading towards Dean's hips. Dean rests his hands on Sam's wrists but doesn't try to stop him. 

"Yes," he says like it hurts to say it out loud. 

Sam shifts forward so that he ends up sitting between Dean's thighs, legs hooked around Dean's hips. His arms go around Dean's neck and he holds on, face buried in the soft skin behind Dean's ear. He doesn't relax until Dean's arms wrap around his waist. 

"We done talking, now?" Sam whispers.

Dean shoves him back just far enough to see his face and then kisses him. Hard, knocking Sam's lower lip against his teeth, clawing a hand up Sam's back to get to his head and tilt it so they fit. "Fuck," he says, and Sam licks into the space the word makes, feeling like he can't get close enough, needing to be everywhere at once. 

Fingers grip tight in Sam's hair and pull him back. "Woah, Sam. Woah," Dean says. "I'm not going anywhere." He mutters something that might be god, forgive me, and then looks Sam in the face. "Slow down. I'd like to keep my tonsils." 

"Sorry." Sam dips his head against Dean's shoulder. "Haven't really done this before."

Clearly the wrong thing to say. Dean shoves him several inches backwards so they're only touching where Dean's hands rest on his hips and Sam's knees hook over Dean's thighs. "You've never—? Sam, how do you know this is—"

"I just meant never with someone I—" Sam doesn't say love and he doesn't say jerk off over every night, just hopes Dean gets the picture. He also doesn't explain that his kissing experience is limited to a game of Two Minutes in Heaven (that totally wasn't) with Becky Sandler, and a drunken kiss from Jamie Sardowsky at the last school dance. He knows what he wants, and Dean is just being stupid. 

"Sam, this is—"

Sam scoots back into Dean's arms. "Show me then. Show me how to kiss you slow."

Dean's hands are shaking when he puts them on Sam's face. He doesn't kiss him, just rests their foreheads together and shuts his eyes. "Sam," he says. "Why are you doing this?"

Sam doesn't know what Dean wants to hear, so he just says, "Because I can't stop thinking about you and it's driving me crazy," which sounds kinda dramatic, but has the advantage of being the truth. 

Dean's fingers grip harder on the sides of Sam's head, and his forehead presses tighter to Sam's own. 

"Please, Dean," Sam continues. "Please. Don't say no. If it's just because we're brothers; if that's the only reason— Please."

The sound Dean makes sends a shiver through Sam's gut, deep and low and sexy. But that's nothing to what Sam's stomach does when Dean kisses him again. Palms tight to Sam's jaw, he tips Sam's head to the side and bites Sam's lower lip, just hard enough to hold it still so he can run his tongue across it. Then he sucks on it until Sam's pretty sure he's going to come in his jeans, and then he stops. 

"Like that," Dean says. 

"Oh my god." Sam's panting like he just did bleacher runs and he shoves the heel of his palm against his dick to keep it under control. 

"Good, huh?" Dean teases. 

Sam just nods. 

Loosening his hold on Sam's face, Dean drops his hands to Sam's shoulders and runs his fingertips up and down the back of Sam's neck. It's maddening and soothing all at once. 

When he can breathe a little more normally, Sam repeats, "Like that?" and pulls Dean forward until their lips are touching. 

He tries to do like Dean did, but he bites too hard; he can feel it in the way his teeth sink in just before Dean jerks a little. "Sorry," he says, letting go, and then tries again. Second time, he gets it right. Slow is good—so fucking good—but he needs more. Even sitting on Dean's lap, he can't get close enough the way they are on the log. 

"Cmmf," he says into Dean's mouth, which means come here, Dean, and tugging at Dean's shirt, he tries to tip them onto the ground. 

Dean seems to think they're falling and tries to right them, but Sam pulls harder and gets his foot down to give himself more leverage. At the cost of breaking their kiss, he ends up on his back in the moist soil with Dean's full weight on top of him. Then they're kissing again, and he has his hands on Dean's ass which is flexing over and over as Dean grinds up against him, his thigh putting the perfect pressure on Sam's dick. 

Somehow, it's about a hundred and thirty times better than any fantasy he's wacked off to since he first put his hand on himself and pretended it was Dean almost two years ago. It's only a minute, maybe two, before Sam comes, arching against Dean's weight and whimpering. Dean swears, twists his hips and grinds faster, fists tight in Sam's hair.

They're biting each other's faces, necks, lips, and Sam's hard again, or still, he can't even tell, wet cotton adding a cling to the friction. He wants Dean to come on his underwear so he can't separate his own mess from Dean's, but there's no way he can explain that right now or get his hands between them to open their pants. 

Later. Later, they can do this again, naked, and Dean can come on his skin, rub it in, press it between their bellies until they're stuck together and can't pull apart. The thought makes Sam's hips jerk as he spasms again, and Dean makes unh unh unh sounds as he shudders and goes loose and heavy on Sam's chest. 

"Jesus," Dean says. "Jesus." He tucks his head into the curve of Sam's neck. When he feels Sam shivering he rolls over and reverses their positions. 

"Mmmm," Sam says.

"You okay?"

Sam's pretty sure he has never been more okay in his life, but that has a lot of words in it, so he just says, "Mmmm," again. 

"You're cold." Dean's got his hands up under Sam's shirt, rubbing his back. 

"Good," Sam manages. He feels like he's been smoking pot again. 

Dean reaches a hand between their hips and palms the wet patch on Sam's jeans. "You got some sweats in your gym bag or something?" 

"Just hold my bag, s'fine." It's not like Mom is usually standing waiting to give them a onceover when they come in, anyway. And Sam likes knowing Dean did that to him. Doesn't want to change. 

"Okay," Dean says a little doubtfully, but then he tilts Sam's chin up and kisses him again, and that's not doubtful at all.

 

It's been five days since Dean took his brother to an abandoned lane to explain all the reasons they couldn't make out, which didn't really go to plan, when he ended up pinning him to the dirt and dry-humping him until they both came in their jeans. 

If it weren't for the seven minutes in the car every day on the way to and from school, Dean might almost think it never happened. School is out, no question at all, as a venue for macking on his brother, and Mom and Dad have never been around so much. "This is why," he wants to say to Sam. "This is why this was a horrible idea." But Sam seems to be looking at it as just a series of temporary setbacks. 

Wednesday, on the way to school, he sat facing Dean, one knee up on the seat, both hands massaging Dean's thigh, and said, "I wanted to come into your room last night, but I heard Dad up, so I lay there thinking about what we did, jerking off until I fell asleep." 

Which, okay, Dean did the same thing, but it wasn't exactly the way to send him off to school ready to learn about parliamentary procedure. 

Thursday and Friday were much the same, with Sam getting bolder about touching and Dean torn between safe driving and wanting Sam's hands on him so badly he didn't care. 

Saturday, Dad had a list of chores as long as his arm; things he needed help with, nothing to send Sam and Dean off to do on their own. 

Sunday, Mom decided they should go on a picnic. Dean was starting to wonder if somehow they knew. The thought made him want to vomit. 

But then this morning, Mom said, "Your dad and I have the charity auction for the animal shelter tonight. We won't be home until after two, probably. You can each have one friend over if you want, but no parties."

"Don't worry," Sam said, and kicked Dean under the table.

Dean carefully kept the grin off his face. "Yeah. Don't worry. We'll save the party for when you go out of town for the whole weekend." 

The knowledge that they have the house to themselves for the night scares Dean to death, but also makes him greedy. Starts him thinking that he can't wait that long and he should catch Sam between first and second period and take him home while Mom and Dad are at work, finally get to kiss him again. 

He resists, but he does get up in the middle of Ms. Tanner's lecture about Sylvia Plath, grabs the bathroom pass, and spends fifteen minutes in the C-hall supply cupboard trying to pull himself together. 

In the car after practice, they can't keep their hands off each other, squeezing, pressing, stroking from ribs to knees and back again, and they are both hard enough to hurt something by the time they get home. Fortunately, Mom is upstairs with Dad making sure he doesn't do anything to his tux or her dress while he's getting them in the bag (or so Dean gathers from her raised voice), and so they can grab snacks and settle in front of the TV without having to chat. 

The next half hour their parents are in a flurry of activity, through which Dean sits with his hands under his thighs to keep them away from Sam. Then finally Mom is saying, "There's pizza in the freezer," and Dad is saying, "Be good," and they're gone. 

Sam reaches for him as soon as the door is closed, but Dean shakes his head. "Upstairs," he says, and waits until he sees Mom's car go past the window before he stands.

Off and on over the week, Dean's been thinking that maybe they could still stop this. Or that they've been building up what happened in their minds, and it's not going to be as good again. If Sam had similar worries, there's no sign. He practically shoves Dean up the stairs, through Dean's bedroom door, and onto his double bed. Even as Dean's falling backwards, Sam is already stripping out of his shirt, and he's trying to shove Dean's up as Dean scoots farther onto the bed. That sets Sam and friction working at cross purposes, and Sam gives up, falls on his brother and grips his waist. 

"Need—need," he says, sucking Dean's jaw, his cheek, his neck, too wound up to stay in one place, fingers frantic in the hem of Dean's shirt. This time Dean has no desire to slow him down. Rolling them sideways, Dean kicks off his shoes and props up on one elbow so he can get his shirt off, practically taking Sam's nose off with it when his brother doesn't stop kissing Dean's collar bone in time. 

Skin to skin they cling together, Sam feeling fragile in Dean's arms even as he's practically crushing Dean's ribs with his grip. Dean wants to look at him, see how his muscles stretch over the length he feels, but he can't stop lapping at the sweat on Sam's neck or loosen his hold; he can look later. 

The girls Dean's made out with have all been quiet. Sam is not. Dean's used to soft sighs and little murmurs and is embarrassed at first at the grunts and moans Sam makes when Dean bites his shoulder or kisses him and sucks on his tongue. 

His dick has a whole different reaction though, and after a few minutes, Dean forgets he was embarrassed. He needs to know what noises Sam will make if Dean touches his dick. It hurts to pull away, but he can't undress either of them like this. "Can't," he says and pushes Sam onto his back, fingers at his waistband.

Sam protests until he figures out what's going on, and then he takes over, leaving Dean free to shuck out of his own jeans. It takes longer than it should because watching Sam wiggle his pants and boxers over his hips, long, slim prick bouncing against his belly, is a serious distraction. Dean wants to know what his brother tastes like there. 

He borrowed one of Marco's video catalogs a few months ago and placed an order. He's almost worn out the part of the tape where the pool boy gives the lawn boy a blow job in the garden shed. Dean can practically smell cut grass as he leans down and nuzzles the sparse hairs below Sam's bellybutton. 

"Dean?" Sam asks, voice shaking.

"Gonna—can I?" Dean says and kisses his brother's dick. 

Sam moans and his hips jerk hard, and Dean takes that as a yes. 

Pushing Sam's legs apart, Dean lies between them and then uses his forearms to hold Sam's pelvis which is bucking before Dean can even touch him again. Pool boy's technique in mind, Dean jacks Sam a couple times and then licks his cockhead like a lollipop. 

"Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck," Sam hisses, and he holds onto Dean's arms for dear life. 

Dean slides his hand down and sucks Sam into his mouth. He's pretty sure he won't be able to go as deep as the pool boy, but he's surprised how soon his gag reflex is hit. Cough, swallow, hand back up a little and he tries again. Second time is better, and there's no chance for try number three as Sam shoots in Dean's mouth, nearly drowning him. 

Fingers tug at Dean's hair as he sputters and spits come all over Sam's stomach and thighs. 

"Sorry," they say at the same time, and then, "Fuck, sorry," which makes them laugh. Dean reaches for his shirt to wipe Sam off but Sam stops him. 

"No," he says. "Want you to come on me too. All smeared together. Both of us." 

"Jesus," Dean says and nearly comes right then on the sheets. 

"Lie on me." Sam tugs Dean's arm.

Dean does, and it's a little gross—Sam's jizz is going cool—but it's also pretty much the sexiest thing Dean's ever done. It's slippery and warms quickly with the friction of Sam writhing under him, and that feels amazing on his dick. Plus, Sam's making those noises again and digging fingers into Dean's ass and back, licking at Dean's mouth, and Dean doesn't want to do anything that isn't this ever again in his life, because it's perfect. 

When he comes, Sam holds him there, belly heaving, mixing their spunk together. Dean can feel Sam's dick hard up behind his balls and wonders if Sam always has this quick a refraction time or if it's just when he's with Dean. Either way, he can't help feeling flattered. 

Moving enough that he can get a hand around his brother's dick, Dean looks at the mess they made and says, "Want more?"

Sam just nods. Dean jerks him slow, teasing, even when Sam grabs at his hand and begs him to go faster, feeling their come dry on his own belly and watching it dry on Sam's. When Sam does come, his legs go stiff and thin milky spurts drip down Dean's fingers. He rubs his hand on Sam's thighs and hips, massaging the muscles as he does. Sam twists in his arms and burrows into his chest, murmuring, "Nap time."

They wake up just before nine and Sam jerks Dean off and lets Dean watch as he jerks himself off. Dean manages to swallow when he sucks Sam in the shower and they go down and eat pizza before going back to bed. Dean sets his alarm for half past one and they wrap around each other and kiss and grope and talk about next year. 

Dean will go to Kansas State, see if he can somehow get a single room, figure out a deal with his roommate if he can't, and Sam can come over as often as he wants. Mom and Dad trust their kids; it will be okay. 

It hits Dean in the gut then, how much his parents trust him, and what he's doing to that trust right now with their baby boy, but Sam's clinging to him, and as much as Dean doesn't want to hurt his parents, the idea of hurting Sam is out of the question. 

Only a week ago this felt impossible, and Dean still knows there are about a billion arguments against it. But listening to Sam talk about how it can be once Dean's at college, his words excited and hopeful and sure-sounding, Dean promises to himself that somehow, they will work this all out.


End file.
